Youngsters still booking into Linlithgow Library

Last month saw 7100 visitors to the site at The Vennel – 1000 more compared to January and February’s total – making it one of West Lothian’s busiest libraries.

There were over 5000 books borrowed and encouragingly for the service, it also had the highest amount of books being borrowed by junior members in the region.

Fiona Aitken, team manager at the library, said: “It’s extremely reassuring to see young people still using the library, although new technologies are advancing all the time, people still like to hold a paper version of a book.

She added: “We try to be welcoming to all, we put on special events, we welcome class visits and nursery visits and visits from authors, local clubs and groups.

“Our staff also visit local schools and nurseries to offer outreach sessions and to talk about the library.

“During the school summer holidays West Lothian libraries hold a reading challenge for our younger members and there is our hugely popular Bookbugs group.”

In addition, local people took advantage of 680 hours of free PC use.

The library, which will move to the Linlithgow Partnership Centre, was the second busiest out of the 14 in the county, only behind Bathgate.

The news comes as new research shows that Scotland has the highest level of public library use in the UK despite seeing a drop in numbers of 11 per cent since 2011.